Ren'Py - Completed - Sanguine Rose [v4.1] [DuskyHallows]

I came into this game with some high expectations due to word of mouth and reviews and boy did it deliver. It is extremely rare for a game of this quality to be found within this growing industry. I can only think of jap VNs with the same quality and in a few aspects this short story surpasses them. With countless games with subpar to borderline insulting levels writing and with the same reused 3D models that 10 other games share, it is truly a breath of fresh air to find a game with competent writing and beautiful art.

The story, though short, is rather unique in that it is kind of subverting the common male power fantasy (I enjoy power fantasies like many others but this industry is plagued with low effort, cheap, and disgusting games of this type, were many have crossed the line of reinforcing the broken mind of a misogynist). This game makes you take the role of a mercenary named Roman with an offer too good to decline, the mission, capture High General Carmen Valentine. After a short sequence, you and your comrades find yourself trapped in a lonely house with Carmen, surprisingly, the one in chains was the on truly in power. It is through your choices that you juggle the power balance between her and your group.

You do not do this alone, you are accompanied by Crow, a young and innocent orc that has yet to explore her carnal desires... Glasha, your old orc companion that is not interested in you, that is what she tells you... and Markus, the flirty go lucky guy.

This brief VN also has some issues. Like many other VNs, some choices felt arbitrary and at times the consequences did not reflect very well with the decision made prior and some of the paths I followed felt inconsistent in the way Roman behaved. Although I enjoyed my time with Roman and Carmen, I would have liked to spend more time with the side characters, specially Glasha, who felt like she was sidelined by Crow and Carmen.

The art is fantastic with exquisite hand drawn art for every character and environment. The different female body types is something I also want to compliment upon. The only criticism I have is that that some facial features are very similar among characters.

Too many creators focus too much on the sexual aspect of their games with very little thought put in the other creative aspects of the game. They could only be described as pornography with some game mechanics (I like those too btw). Sanguine Rose feels like a game with pornography something rarely seen here.

Its pretty, defo a high quality game. Art is really good, probably one of the better looking games youll find here. The story is kinda interesting, pretty standard but still enjoyable. But its just too short, cant give a better rating if its done in half an hour.

One of the first games I dled on this site and still the best if judging by literary quality, and definitely at/near the top for art.

All the characters feel like actual humans (unlike virtually all 'story-driven' f95 titles). They each have something distinct and interesting to say and all of it is both coherent and relevant to the plot. The plot itself is simple (not simplistic) and short, which is ideal for porno games. It serves it's purpose, i.e as a framework for exploring kinks (bdsm and power play, in this case) in a way that 'irl' porno cannot/doesn't.

There are three options/routes to choose from, and all three make sense as things the PC would do in the situation he finds himself. But the conclusion of the route that can be summarised as - I will defeat you and then penetrate you with my phallus, no matter what it costs me - takes the prize for sheer dramatic intensity.

The other endings are less impressive. The game world is grimdark (and kinky, indeed the grimdark complements the kink), but I felt the "wholesome" ending didn't quite reflect that. The rest are basically game-overs.

Moving on to the art, while the style isn't original it's gorgeous nonetheless. Characters' faces and bodies look like what they're supposed to. Not all scenes are animated and the ones that are could be better.

Judging solely by the gfx it's a 3.5-4/5 (weighed down by lacklustre animations). The story however merits 5/5 all by itself just for being a genuinely fun little read, sadly a very rare experience around these parts.

The story, characters and the art are so awesome that this is one of my favorite games, adult or not. I also bought it on Steam to support the devs. About 10 hours to complete all the content, but replaying it just for its haunting beauty.

The story is indeed really nice and interesting, but the art....

ITS TOP NOTCH.

Who made these! I mean, its so nice, can't express it totally in words, so many instances I felt like I could forget myself in Carmen's eyes, whoever made the art, you are damn brilliant.
I can tell you, dear reader, don't think twice before installing the game, you'll have a fun, exciting, and soothing journey through this visual novel.

Also, a piece of advice, try to get the "Burn" end at the end of the gameplay, the art is quite realistic to kill the mightiest of boners.
(Also, the beginning scenes for "Submissive Roman" scenes are kinda worth Glasha's death scene.)

It is a somewhat short yet interesting game.

I like that there are multiple endings and that there is also a good ending (I managed to get it on my first playthrough), while all others are pretty dark. The art itself is extremely enjoyable and well done.

I dislike the lack of player agency, as in I wish I had more to choose from in certain situations, I want a better ending so to speak, and I want to actually be in control of the team/Carmen. I also find that while the art is beautiful it's static nature makes sex scenes boring and slow.

There is a lot of reading to do, but I'm not sure I like or dislike it, it's just there - but it is interesting/engaging most of the time.

Overall I think this is a very unique game here, but still lacking.

Definitely worth playing at least once though!

Magnificient game. I was not that impressed by the pornographic content (genre just didn't appeal to me personally that much, but the art is really well done) but the game itself is surprisingly good. Relatable charactes with depth and flaws; good art; good writing; meaningful choices with real effects (which sometimes seem a bit random, but actually start to make more sense once you learn how the other paths work); a reasonably logical and believable story (dark fantasy setting)

Game of Thrones, but femdom! Incredible artwork (stylised, but not anime - it's Western). The setting is clearly inspired by DnD, if you keep in mind those two [cute] half-orcs.

My first impression was with taking a clear submissive (even spineless) route, and the story flowed without any jarring or contrived plot turns. Player agency makes experiencing all the possible stories quite convoluted. There is a handy gallery section with all the amazing drawings, and the locked ones have titles that give vague hints on how to get them.

The art and premise was good, story and lack of animations really threw me off.

Who has a prisoner, especially the leader of an army, not tied up and gagged. What mercenary gives a prisoner a weapon. What mercenary believes anything a prisoner says.

Like I said, premise is good, story is unrealistic to the point of being retarded. But hey, it's fiction, someone might like it,

Rather short.

Character personalities were interesting, not mercenaries, but interesting.

Thanks for sharing your hard work.

Short but sweet, great writing and cool branching paths, some of the best art i've ever seen, some of the most attractive female character i've ever seen, especially for an orc girl, and some outstandingly good porn.

Really recommanded, a must play !

-Definitely has some hot sex scenes. Not much animation and you may or may not prefer the drawn style over rendered 3D art but the scenes are very descriptive. I was turned on to this game because it features a cumswapping scene which seems to be rarer in erotic games than I would have expected so it was a big plus in my book.
-The story is not grand in scale but it is an interesting sort of "bottle episode".
-I agree with other reviewers that a weakness of the game is that it is so heavily tilted toward "Carmen wins". The reason I say this isn't that I want the protagonist to win by default, but because it makes some of the paths and your companions' actions almost seem arbitrary. What I mean is that, on most paths, Carmen is portrayed as an unbeatable strategist so any time you get the upper hand it requires some handwaving. For example, in the path where you poison Carmen, there is a line about letting your guard down but being sure she won't attack. Why is it safe to let your guard down here when any other time you can't? It feels like the answer is simply "you're on the poison Carmen route and in order to poison her you have to momentarily get the upper hand". Likewise with the behavior of Crow. She can be basically a free use whore, loyal and subservient, or domineering toward Roman or betray him. I think the intention is that the changes are the result of the player's choices and Carmen's subsequent manipulations, but they are so sudden and so stark that it just comes across as "well that's the path you're on, so that's what happens". It makes her feel like a weaker character- like she has no true characterization and just changes to suit the player.
-Had to edit to add that Crow is incredibly cute- one of my favorite characters from erotic games. So my criticism is more like she's so close to being perfect so I think the little bit that keeps her from it stands out as more frustrating.

A surprisingly psychological game, in the sense that by the end, I didn't know which of 3 of the different endings was my favorite. Because, no matter what you do, you can't really have everything. Give it a shot, because you may not leave satisfied, but you might leave thoughtful

Good art, but a bit frustrating to play.

Even on my first playthrough, I realized the character of Carmen is dangerous. Game makes that pretty clear.

Thus it was irritating that there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid sexing her up.

Clearly a case of the author REALLY liking a particular character, so every path pretty much leads to that character wining in one way or another.

If you're into that sort of story, the art definitely gives you nice fap material, but after several playthroughs, I never felt like I had much agency, which is a major issue with a game.

TL;DR good for the art, low level of agency.

This game is short and sweet. It's not so long that only a few choices have any impact on the story, but it's not so short you'd think the game is incomplete.

Every image in the game is drawn rather than rendered, leading to a very unique style, which when combined with the choice of music, builds an amazing atmosphere very fitting to the story and time period of the game.

This game is advertised as giving you lots of choices in how to play it, but that isn't really the case. Unless you want to get the bad ending you are forced to play along with the prisoner Carmen, I haven't found a way to get a good ending without having sex with her at some point. A lot of the sex scenes start without any warning or a way to avoid them, for example feeding her leads to either a bj scene or eating her out without giving you the option to just feed her normally.

As for the endings, there seem to be 5 or so all with different variations yet not a single one where you can kill the prisoner or successfully complete your job. For example you get the option to abandon her and run away, but of course you cant kill her to tie up loose ends.

The way she wins your companions over to her side doesn't really make sense either unless they have some sort of mental disability.
For example one of them gives her his dagger and then acts shocked that she stabbed you with it. The other one turns into a nymphomaniac after talking to her once. And after your companions are indoctrinated by her you have no way to convince them to stay loyal to you.

So what this game boils down to is doing whatever Carmen wants until day 3 and then deciding on an ending. Some endings have obscure requirements that you wouldn't have a way to know about without trial and error, but they all end up being more or less the same so it doesn't really matter.

The sex scenes are pretty good to be fair, so if that is the main reason you want to play this you won't be disappointed.

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Love the play with power dynamics, the cohesion of character and artwork, and the brilliant hand-drawn artwork in a vacuum. Looking forward to Joystick Bliss, the next Dusky Hallows game.

This was amazing.

I really love the sort of trapped house thing, like that Hateful Eight movi ... everyone is trapped in there will they go stir crazy and what kinda stuff will happen. It was also really well written... I thought initially the prisoners over sexed kinda stuff might be a bit too much but it plays out well. I also loved it wasn't full of big silly boobs, there's a weird inclination in games for beachball tits for some reason. In fact the art is super well done and conveys what's going down really well - I ended up super into crow (one of the characters). It was well paced too, often in games I find myself growing bored and wanted to skip the text quickly to get to the next decision or scene but I read every line in this.

The only minor downside I can think of is there's one bit where 4 of them is in the room and the camera seems to feel the need to pan left and right a tiny bit when each person says something and it really interrupts the flow compared to if it was still and the text pops up but as I said I'm a bit impatient ... and this is a very picky minor downside.

I've been through it a few times and don't think I've seen all the scenes, I'll probably give it another whirl again later (even though I know it's completed and nothing will change) as it's that good.

This is a good one! The art is gorgeous and hot. The story is interesting, with many branching paths all leading to different endings.

The story centers around a kidnapping gone wrong. The people who ordered the kidnapping aren't showing up to pick up the prisoner, who is both powerful and rather resourceful. Keeping her locked up is proving more and more difficult. What to do? Let her go and hope she forgives you? Try to strike a deal with her? Use her? Trick her? The choices are many and all lead to distinct outcomes. If you ever wondered how a branching story is supposed to be done, this is it! Nobody does it better than DuskyHallows. Although it's pretty short, the replayability of this game is crazy high. You'll need at least 3 playthroughs before you've experienced most of the story.

Recommended if you like a well thought out story with well written dialogues. And absolutely gorgeous CG art. I just wish there was more art and animations.

Thats an example how to do a great game with only few locations and characters. The game has a great fantasy atmosphere due to realy good writing and beautiful artwork but might have been more picture. The situations always clear however the little details only imaginary because there are things that only apears in text form. First two gameplay was very exciting for me but as I see there are lot of content after that so I walkthroughed all route and it was interesting too. Choices has deep impact to story and there are quite a lot route and endings. All ending connected to an epilogue story where you can know more about characters fate after story adventure which is depends on different routes.